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> Ie. most managers can't help their team find a hard bug that is causing a massive outage. Strategy vs tactics. Managers aren't there to teach their reports s

> Ie. most managers can't help their team find a hard bug that is causing a massive outage. Strategy vs tactics. Managers aren't there to teach their reports skills, they hire them because they already have them. They're there to set priorities and overall direction.

BeetleB 2y ago
He's not disputing that. The difference, though, is that if you're using LLMs as code assistants, your skills will atrophy the way the manager's skills will, but you are still a SW engineer. While the manager doesn't need those skills, you still do.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  LLMs and agents are going to make labels like 'sw engineer', 'qa tester', marketer, CFO, and CEO very squishy. I think in the coming decade if you put yourself in a box and do a specialized task, and nothing more, you'll have a bad time. This is going to be an era where strategy is far more important than tactics.
  - Applejinx 2y ago
    This assumes all specialized tasks are fungible. I can't disagree more strongly. If you're a specialized person with expertise and ability to perform outside the knowledge of all possible interns because you're developing something novel and not covered by standard materials, you'll be hard to compete with using AI because AI will direct people to standardized methods. Granted, if you do a specialized task that is taught in schools and that anyone can do, that's trouble. But that's not tactics either, that's clock-punching. That's replaceable. You can talk 'strategy' all you like but if you're only exploiting the AI's ability to do what people already know, that's another box to be stuck in.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      I think we're in agreement then, I'm saying the specialists of this stripe: > if you do a specialized task that is taught in schools are in trouble, and so are you. > perform outside the knowledge of all possible interns This is the strategic level thinking I'm referring to. Frankly this role might not be safe either, but if that's the case then we're probably headed for fully automated luxury communism no matter what we do.

BeetleB 2y ago

He's not disputing that. The difference, though, is that if you're using LLMs as code assistants, your skills will atrophy the way the manager's skills will, but you are still a SW engineer. While the manager doesn't need those skills, you still do.

mullingitover 2y ago
LLMs and agents are going to make labels like 'sw engineer', 'qa tester', marketer, CFO, and CEO very squishy. I think in the coming decade if you put yourself in a box and do a specialized task, and nothing more, you'll have a bad time. This is going to be an era where strategy is far more important than tactics.
- Applejinx 2y ago
  This assumes all specialized tasks are fungible. I can't disagree more strongly. If you're a specialized person with expertise and ability to perform outside the knowledge of all possible interns because you're developing something novel and not covered by standard materials, you'll be hard to compete with using AI because AI will direct people to standardized methods. Granted, if you do a specialized task that is taught in schools and that anyone can do, that's trouble. But that's not tactics either, that's clock-punching. That's replaceable. You can talk 'strategy' all you like but if you're only exploiting the AI's ability to do what people already know, that's another box to be stuck in.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    I think we're in agreement then, I'm saying the specialists of this stripe: > if you do a specialized task that is taught in schools are in trouble, and so are you. > perform outside the knowledge of all possible interns This is the strategic level thinking I'm referring to. Frankly this role might not be safe either, but if that's the case then we're probably headed for fully automated luxury communism no matter what we do.